Photo: Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times

PM is on a break, so I might as well come off mine.

I’ve been traveling about for some time now, collecting pictures and anecdotes, which I’ll post as time permits. But while I was sifting through the shots and sorting out my thoughts, I came across this piece in the Los Angeles Times.

It was listed under their “Most emailed Stories” sidebar, but that is actually a misnomer, since it is mainly a collection of photos with a bit of text clinging precariously—apologetically (one might even say)—to the outer edge.

Proving (what we already know): that pictures often speak more authoritatively than words.

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Anyway, clicking through the photos, the following thoughts came to mind (not necessarily in this order):

—tjmHolden

Making the approach down the brick path from the parking lot, the new configuration was barely discernible.

Positioned as it was to the left, just inside the glassed doors, the table might have been visible, but for someone who had been away for ten days, its nature and meaning were difficult to decipher.






And even as I reached to pull the handle on the door that would provide entry into my office building, the bottle positioned dead center atop the formica seemed an alien object: a sphere for speculation, a privileged marker, an icon of mystical knowledge.






An outsider, a newcomer—hey, even an absent insider like me—might have legitimately wondered: “what is this noise?”

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—tjmHolden

I had an interesting exchange the other day, the fallout from publication of the most recent installment of ReDotPop. The substance of the dispute is less important than the fact that there was a dispute at all. And why? Because at root was a basic assumption by a couple of readers who responded in the vein that I was a particular (kind of) person: one they thought I must be based on the words that they read on the screen. The only thing is that I really wasn’t that person they were making me out to be (even though I had truly employed those words that led them to that viewpoint). They read the column, took my words at face value, ran with it, got (justifiably exercised)—and there we had it: the makings of a first class verbal joust, an ideational brouhaha, a comedy of erroneous supposition.

It led to a Catch-22, of sorts, which I will explain below. Nothing real profound, as Catch-22s go; rather, a sort of low-grade writer’s dilemma. But, at a more important level of concern: a puzzle in (constructing and defending) identity.

But for now— here’s the thing: for these readers, how would they ever know that I wasn’t the person that the words suggested? How could they? After all, I had invoked those words from which the inferences derived. Constructed and published those sentences my own self, under my own banner. Shouldn’t I be accountable for what appeared after I pressed the “Submit” button?

—tjmHolden

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This past week, as I reported in my most recent PM column, ReDotPop, The ISU World Figure Skating Championships were held in Los Angeles, California. Now, what I know about skating probably rivals the amount of hair remaining on my head (which is to say, very little), but when I happened to score a couple of tickets for one of the 5 nights of the competition, I wasn’t about to turn down a chance to go. I figured (ha ha) I might even learn something in the process.

What I didn’t figure on was that the seats would be—like, right on the ice—but since they were, they rendered the immense, pre-war German binoculars I had brought superfluous. Fortunately, my proximity to the skaters empowered my miniature Japanese camera which, thanks to a fairly promiscuous trigger finger, snapped off a good 200 shots. The (less fuzzy) of this (unorganized) lot has now been posted on Picasa, which you can find here, if you are interested.

As for what I learned after my 3 hours of viewing and shooting, well, that can be found after the jump . . .

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—tjmHolden

I’ve been on the road for—it seems—forever; hence the silence, and hopefully you’ve missed this voice. Words and pictures to follow.

For today though, I wanted to make a few brief comments about the World Baseball Classic (WBC), just completed. If you are not a baseball fan—no worries: this isn’t really an entry about the sport; it is more a commentary on America, ideology, globalization, monsters unleashed, and the future. Now, if any or all of those topics turn you off, then I guess my next hour or so of literary effort is going to be wasted. Pity on a perspiring writer.

But, if not, then herewith for your perusal and cogitation . . .

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—tjmHolden

The rankings are in and so is the verdict: the most efficacious U.S. presidents have tended to come from eras prior to the massification of media, and also prior to the age of pop.

That is one conclusion to be drawn from a study commissioned by the U.S. cable outlet C-Span, in conjunction with today’s “Presidents’ Day”. Sixty-five historians were asked to rank the 42 former presidents along 10 measures of leadership (listed below the jump), which, given that this is the second such survey in a decade, enables some comparative analysis. The full results are here, and some of them come as a bit of a surprise. For instance, it is beginning to appear that William Jefferson Clinton, is going to be treated well by posterity. His ranking improved over the past decade from 21^st to 15^th. And Bush II did not debut as far to the bottom as one might have expected—his current ranking is 36^th. (I guess that means that Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan really were atrocious leaders!)

But in reading the results, what really pops out is the absence of a pop effect; a media accelerator. Or, to state it negatively: there doesn’t appear to be a very strong positive correlation between mass media and presidential performance. This might seem logical, as media may assist in the popular perception of performance, but not necessary in actual success in programs, policy-making, leadership and the like. Something that Gerald Ford learned with his “WIN” (Whip Inflation Now) campaign, which never did anything to affect inflation (except, possibly, indirectly, by hastening his exit from the White House).

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—tjmHolden